million of adrenin. See. Here, by the writing lever, the
rhythmical contractions are recorded. Such a strip of tissue will live
for hours, will contract and relax beautifully with a regular rhythm
which, as you see, can be graphically recorded. This is my adrenin
test."

Carefully he withdrew the ruled paper with its tracings.

"It's a very simple test after all," he said, laying beside this tracing
another which he had made previously. "There you see the difference
between what I may call 'quiet blood' and 'excited blood.'"

I looked at the two sets of tracings. Though they were markedly
different, I did not, of course, understand what they meant. "What do
they show to an expert?" I asked, perplexed.

"Fear," he answered laconically. "Gloria Brackett did not go
voluntarily. She did not elope. She was forced to go!"

"Attacked and carried off?" I queried.

"I did not say that," he replied. "Perhaps our original theory that her
nose was bleeding may be correct. It might have started in the
excitement, the anger and fear at what happened, whatever it was.
Certainly the amount of adrenin in her blood shows that she was laboring
under strong enough emotion."

Our telephone rang insistently and Kennedy answered it. As he talked,
although I could hear only one side of the conversation, I knew that the
message was from Chase and that he had found something important about
the missing necklace.

"What was it?" I asked eagerly as he hung up the receiver.

"Chase has traced the necklace," he reported; "that is, he has
discovered the separate stones, unset, pawned in several shops. The
tickets were issued to a girl whose description exactly fits Gloria
Brackett."

I could only stare at him. What we had all feared had actually taken
place. Gloria must have taken the necklace herself. Though we had feared
it and tried to discount it, nevertheless the certainty came as a shock.

"Why should she have taken it?" I considered.

"For many possible reasons," returned Kennedy. "You saw the life she was
leading. Her own income probably went to keeping those harpies going.
Besides, her mother had cut her allowance. She may have needed money
very badly."

"Perhaps they had run her into debt," I agreed, though the thought was
disagreeable.

"How about that other little woman we saw?" suggested Kennedy. "You
remember how Gloria seemed to stand in fear of Du Mond? Who knows but
that he made her get it to save her reputation? A